The Night of the Moths Page 8
They asked for an extra drive-by, Central. And we’ll give it to ’em.
He points the flashlight into the station wagon parked next to the gate. He scrutinizes the interior, looking for something. Anything that seems out of place. Nothing. All run-of-the-mill. He bends down to look underneath.
And it’s at that moment that he hears the screeching tires of another car taking off like a shot.
He leaps up. With all the feline swiftness that his abundant avoirdupois will allow, he races around the parked car and aims his flashlight onto the street. A black car is speeding away. The bastard got the better of him. Or at least he thought he did.
Everything under control, Central. No problem.
“Now I have your license-plate number, you piece of shit. HO-HO-HO.”
PART TWO
WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS
One
Imagine a house, with two floors, surrounded by other similar houses, each with a small garden and a path leading to a garage. In the garden is a gazebo with a small table and a few scattered chairs. Some colored lights, a little music, somewhat dated so that when listening to it you can say, “Remember that?” The urge to have fun now faded, the kind of fun that no longer comes as naturally as it did before, because it requires an extra effort. Now that evenings when you can enjoy yourself are planned, and you can’t afford the luxury of not enjoying them. Picture Betti. Try to follow her movements tonight. Watch her as she moves among the others, with a bottle of beer in her hand. She left the babies with her mother and ordered herself to have fun. She seems happy as she talks with her friends, welcomes them in the garden, and shows them where they can help themselves to appetizers, cold pasta, frozen pizza, and drinks. Colored paper plates, colored paper cups, colored paper napkins. Try to take a step back, enlarge the picture. See the other people standing at the edges of the image? Does it really look like they’re having fun? And doesn’t Betti’s enthusiasm start to seem out of place, now that they’re all nothing more than little fish swimming in too small a pond?
Now a yellow Beetle arrives. Let’s move closer again, just enough to see me and Enrico get out of the car and walk up to the gate of Maurizio and Betti’s house. I’m wearing a pale-blue blouse. It’s the one that Sandro will later recognize, when he sees it in the woods, soiled with mud.
Enrico honks the horn and raises a hand to wave. When Maurizio looks in our direction, I look the other way to avoid meeting his eyes. We go inside with them, stand among them. Get something to drink and sit on the glider in the garden, next to Paolino, the pale, gangly guy in a short-sleeved shirt with a cell phone in its case hanging from his belt. As soon as he notices you, he’ll say, “What a night, huh?” because he always says that. But, then, since he usually doesn’t say anything else, he’ll leave you in peace to take it all in.
Enrico must have noticed that Betti is a little revved up. He goes over to her and they start moving to a song by R.E.M., “Losing My Religion.” Now that you’re up close you can read in their eyes that complicity that I sometimes envied. Still, it’s not enough. It wasn’t enough. Not even for them. That veil, however subtle, remained. He wasn’t aware of it, she decided it was so.
She knows.
And where am I? I’d gone into the house, looking for the bathroom. So I said.
Instead I find Maurizio, in the kitchen, who, with the excuse of going to get cold beers from the fridge, was waiting for me. What follows is a dialogue from a badly written film script. You can copy and paste it right here. He says he wants to stop playing these games, no more subterfuges, that he loves me and wants to tell her so, that what happened between us is not anyone’s fault but it happened and so on, that he’s no longer happy with his life, that for too long he’s stood by responsibilities that basically he didn’t even want to assume, that he wants to live again, that in me he sees his life as it could be and that he’s sick and tired of just watching it from a distance. And then I say that it’s all wrong, because I made a mistake, I screwed up without meaning to, that I’ve decided to tell Enrico about it, but that I’m a shit because all day I didn’t have the guts to do it.
I move away, he grabs me by the arm, I turn and . . .
“We need beers.”
Betti is at the kitchen door. She smiles. Maybe she heard.
Sitting on the glider, next to Paolino, you saw Betti dancing just before, then at one point stop. She looked in the house. You saw her smile at Enrico and tell him something about the beers. But, since you are not involved in the party and are aware of your role as observer, you were able to see what even Enrico hadn’t seen. The smile that wilted on Betti’s lips.
You went into the house with her. You saw there was someone in the kitchen. You heard voices speaking, as yet indistinct. You approached. You recognized some scraps of that poorly written dialogue and saw when he tried to stop me . . .
“We need beers.”
Not knowing how to get out of it, I open the fridge, take a few beers, and carry them outside. My head is spinning. I have to talk to Enrico. I have to be the one to tell him.
He’s in the garden. He smiles at me.
I feel dirty. I desperately want to clean myself. I go back inside and go upstairs to the bathroom. I strip off my clothes.
“You okay?” Maurizio again, outside the door.
“Please go away.”
I start crying. I feel the cold water on my face. I’m shivering. I don’t know what I’m doing. I put my clothes on over my wet body. I open the door, and Maurizio is there with his fucking beer in hand, looking at me like I am crazy.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asks me.
I push past him back down the stairs.
I go outside and tell Enrico I want to leave. That I need to talk to him about something. And that’s how it all happens.
Two
Enrico just didn’t understand why that perfect world of his had stopped working. It was so clear that I would move to Rome with him. It was so clear that this would be the outcome, the next step. Completely linear, with no change of direction or sudden swerves. Enrico’s perfect world was a happy, colorful toy train—its route marked by two solid tracks—from which to enjoy the scenery, admire the shapes of the trees, fill your eyes with the beauty all around you. So it was impossible for him to understand why someone would decide to get off. And maybe I made a mistake. I should have told him about Maurizio right away, rather than starting at the end, with the decision to be on my own for a while. Because Enrico’s reaction was such that all other arguments were unlikely.
We were on the way back from the party. Enrico was driving me home. He’d wanted me to spend the night with him, but I didn’t feel like it, not after I told him what I had to tell him. I was talking, trying to put together the speech I had practiced to myself thousands of times, but that suddenly seemed so confused. At one point, he pulled the car over, turned to me without taking his hands off the wheel, and asked, “Is there someone else?”
Was there? Had there been? Was that the reason? I couldn’t respond, and my hesitation triggered something in Enrico that I hadn’t seen in all the years I’d known him. Shortness of breath, eyes brimming with tears that he struggled to hold back. I’d really hurt him and I was sorry, truly. But he came down hard on me and, in the end, I don’t think I deserved it, not that way at least. I couldn’t say anything. He didn’t give me a chance. Finally, I opened the car door and stepped out into the road. I had no idea why I’d done it. Maybe to get some air, escape the sound of his voice, spewing out words he had no right to say to me. I walked away. Maybe that’s when I decided to return home on my own. I don’t know. The idea was barely formed. I saw the woods and I realized that if I cut straight through, I would reach the provincial road to Carrubo and from there I would go straight home. It wasn’t far.
Enrico did nothing. Maybe deep inside I hoped that he’d get out, that he would call after me. That he would even try and stop me, grab my arms, hold me back, before he
finally heard me, accepted things.
But he did not. He stayed in the car. I saw him with his head lowered, defeated, crushed by too strong a blow. It was my fault that he stayed there. But seeing him that way, all his defenses down, I thought it would be best to leave him by himself. And that was why, in the end, I made the decision I did.
I turned to the woods and slipped into the trees.
When I heard Enrico’s car start and found myself alone, I began to calm down. I decided not to think about any of it until the next day. I decided to put the things that were said and not said out of my head. The woods weren’t dense in that area. I liked to go there, especially in summer. I was reminded of an old song by The Cure, “One More Time,” that I always listened to as I came home from school; I would get off a stop ahead to do the last stretch on foot and pass through these woods. I loved The Cure. I loved that song and that album, and I think the desire to hear it again was one of the last happy thoughts of my life. Because at that moment, as I thought about the strange red album cover and the instrumental intro to the first song, I heard a noise. Someone was there, close to me. And turning around I saw him.
That pasty face of his, twisted into a sick expression, appeared before me like a ghost.
The Half-Wit.
He lived in that little cabin in the woods, not far from here. I hadn’t thought about it, that’s all. It may sound absurd, but the fact that that area, so familiar to me, could become a place of danger, because of the Half-Wit, was a thought that hadn’t even crossed my mind.
But now here he was. Staring at me with that blank, wide-eyed look.
He was leaning against a tree. He still had that cap of his on his head. I turned and started walking quickly away. Then I heard him coming behind me. I started running. In an instant fear devoured everything else. The woods seemed suddenly vast and menacing, as if they wanted to close up around me, imprison me there, alone with that maniac. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone.
I frantically scrolled through the last numbers I’d called to find Enrico’s number, thinking maybe he was still close, but I realized that I had picked up the wrong phone earlier that evening. I had grabbed the phone that was used to take reservations at the restaurant. It was identical to mine. It wasn’t the first time I’d gotten them mixed up. So Enrico’s number wasn’t there, and I never memorized numbers. But Sandro’s number was saved on that phone.
I kept running, even though I had the feeling that the Half-Wit was no longer behind me. I slowed down for a moment, just long enough to open the contacts list and select my brother’s number.
The phone rang and rang, but he didn’t answer.
I sent him a text.
Call me. A
I added the A because the number wasn’t mine, and seeing the restaurant’s number, Sandro would at the very least call home. If there was the chance of doing something stupid, my brother did not usually pass it up.
I tried him again, but it was no use.
I went on running. Maybe the Half-Wit wasn’t so fast, I reasoned, trying to calm down some. But I couldn’t stop seeing that ghost-white face of his.
When Sandro didn’t answer a third time, I left him a message.
“Where the hell are you, Sandro? I’m walking back and that fucking maniac is following me. Call me back, otherwise I’ll have to call home, and if he comes he’ll kill him and I don’t want to talk to him about this. Come on, Sandro, call me. I’m almost to the road near the bend.”
I don’t know how long I ran, but I kept going, never looking back. Time seemed interminable. When I realized that I was close to the road, I turned around, but the Half-Wit was nowhere to be seen. I could have called Sandro back and told him to forget it, but I was still scared and I wouldn’t have minded seeing my brother’s car arrive. I approached the road, catching my breath.
When the car’s headlights sprang from around the curve, I leaned into the road to be seen. The headlights slowed. The car stopped.
But it wasn’t Sandro’s.
It all happened so quickly.
It’s strange, but the last thing I remember is a thought. An apartment that has never existed. I am there, with a cup of tea, an old couch with a book propped on it, my stereo with CDs stacked on the floor, a window steamy with condensation. I can’t figure out where this place is because I can’t see anything through the window. Everything looks white. I should get closer, maybe wipe the glass or open the window and look out. I’m by myself. From the stereo, I hear Eddie Vedder’s voice singing “Black.” I’m wearing my heavy socks, and there’s a warm blanket on that sofa, which is just waiting for me to curl up on it to finish that book. It’s a strange feeling, maybe I don’t fully understand it, but I have the impression that I have never felt so happy. That there is nothing else I need. So I decide to forget about the window. It’s cold outside. I don’t feel like opening it, and in the end knowing what’s out there isn’t so important. What’s important is what’s in here. I clasp the cup in my hands as the tea’s aroma fills the room. I walk over to the couch. I lie down and cover my legs with the blanket. It’s so nice and warm. So soft. I pick up the book and start to read.
And without even realizing it, I fall asleep.
Three
Enrico has that half bottle of Lagavulin floating around in his head. Lost somewhere in the night, he gets up from the couch, opens the fridge, takes big gulps from the bottle of mineral water, and looks at the clock, a reflex that has nothing to do with wanting to know what time it is. There is only one thought around which his mind revolves.
The messages.
“I thought you wanted to know, and instead you chose to forget.”
Was it Sandro who’d left them? Was it like Maurizio said? Was that the explanation? Why would he do it? Why use Alice’s phone? If Sandro had indeed sent those messages, why would he keep Alice’s phone? To torment him? And know what? What was it he should have wanted to know?
An obsessive thought. Like a wave, always the same, which produces an identical roar each time it swells and breaks on the shore. Then he checks the clock again without noticing what time it is, opens the fridge again, reaches for the same bottle, goes back to the couch where he left his jacket, and checks to see if there are any messages, from Giulia or anyone else who now seems far away. He takes the same steps around the room, circling the only thing that can pull him out of the obsession that he is only now becoming aware of. The old phone is in the center of the coffee table. A faint nocturnal light comes through the window, gently caressing it. Clunky, so rapidly outdated in the way that is typical of objects of this type. Enrico sits down at the table. He leans his elbows on it, intertwines his hands, and rests his chin on them. He knows what he is about to do. Putting it off any longer has the uncertainty of hesitation, but it is merely preparatory, a deep breath before taking action. The SIM is disabled by now. He’s about to get up and get his phone out of his jacket pocket when he’s surprised to find it already there, in his hand. He enters Alice’s number and presses the call button. It starts ringing. In the air a signal travels in search of a reply, but it comes up against a closed door, and a recorded voice says something about a number that does not exist or words that he would have understood better had he not been in the company of half a bottle of Scotch. So then he writes a text message:
Are you still there? I haven’t forgotten anything. What should I know? (Enrico)
He hits “Send,” then gets up, checks his watch that could have been stopped for days without him being aware of it, goes back to the kitchen, opens the fridge again, and as he drinks from the bottle of mineral water, wonders what sense it makes to send a message ten years back in time. What sense does any of this make, and why did he even stay here instead of just returning on Monday to conclude his business with the agency.
He sets his phone down on the coffee table, next to the other one. It’s the dead of night, unlikely that anyone will answer. What time is it? He doesn’t know. But
it’s late. Maybe he’ll be able to sleep a few hours before morning comes. He always sleeps very little, no more than four hours, then he spends the rest of the night on the couch. Sometimes he reads, sometimes he looks for something on television, always with the sound turned off to avoid waking Giulia. When he’s really tired, he resorts to some magic little pill that helps him conquer his insomnia, but when he wakes up he feels weird, unnatural. Too easy to know when it was that nights started being so long and unbearable. If in ten years he hasn’t yet been able to sleep, is it any wonder why he hasn’t returned home and decided to stay here?
He goes back to the kitchen, opens the fridge, takes the bottle, and drinks from it in big gulps. He crumples the empty bottle so it will take up less space in the recycling bin. He opens the fridge again and grabs another bottle. He opens it, drinks from it, and puts it back on the shelf. He checks the clock. He rolls down all the shutters, creating total darkness, the sole condition in which he ever manages to fall asleep. He lies down on the couch.
He feels his body sinking into the cushions and feels the warmth of the hours of sleep approaching.
He closes his eyes and lets himself relax.
He doesn’t yet know that his return to town has already had consequences. That things that had remained buried for so many years are about to come to light.
Four
Fabiana’s body was a perfect black silhouette in the white luminosity of the strobe light that flashed behind her. A profile that Sandro could mentally fill in with everything he needed, being familiar with every single detail, every inch of that form.
Before arriving at the Tortuga, the discotheque where Fabiana worked as a cube dancer, he had spent an hour lifting weights in his room, to make his veins stand out and his biceps and pecs appear to bulge from his tight black T-shirt. Touch up the peroxided soul patch, add the diamond earring. If Alice had seen him, she would have said something about the utter “crassness” of certain choices, or as she calls them, “aesthetic solutions.” But, fortunately, the city boy from Rome had taken her to a party.